Tuesday, December 8, 2020

2021 Reading Challenges -- An Ambitious List


Another new year is coming in and I've cleared the entire 2021 calendar for reading...

Ha! I wish! Really, though. I've spent years trying to find ways to clear my schedule so I could stay home more and do the things I love. 2020 pretty much did that for me so, in the words of my prophetic 2018 post on upcoming reading challenges: "In short, I'm staying home. Forever."

I've looked over several awesome reading challenges out there and have settled on those below. Mt. TBR is still threatening an eruption and I've got to get ahead of it!


This challenge takes place right here at Belle's Library. You may read any book published during or about the Victorian era (1837-1901). 


I'm hosting this brand new challenge this year. Read all the things you missed out on as a kid---or revisit some old favorites! 

This challenge encourages us to read a minimum of four books and offers monthly themed challenges.


This one is new to me this year, though I do think I participated once upon a time. The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge at The Intrepid Reader. Choose your era and go to town! I think I'll attempt the Medieval Level at 15 historical fiction books. Use hashtag: #histficreadingchallenge on social media.

I actually have quite a bit of Georgian/Regency books on my TBR. I love this era!

This one is new to me this year: the Back to the Classic's Challenge from Books and Chocolate. She offers challenges and a grand prize! Read anything published before 1971---easy peasy!


This is a set-it-yourself challenge that runs for 5 years. Commit to reading at least 50 classics in 5 years.  You can see my list here: The Classics Club.

Daughters of Promise runs the Brighter Winter Reading Program during the months of January and February. They offer a challenge sheet and prizes!


What great reading challenges have you discovered for 2021?

The 2021 Children's Books Reading Challenge -- for Adults! #2021ChildrensBooksChallenge


I've just about finished signing up for all the reading challenges I'm planning on participating in for 2021. I've browsed my TBR shelves to prepare and there's one unexpected thing I've found: I have a lot of children's books there. 

I know a lot of adults really enjoy reading youth or young adult fiction but, other than the occasional classic, I've never really been into it in my adulthood. Still, I must be somewhat interested or I wouldn't have 10-15 or so children's books hanging out on my TBR!

So, I've created the Children's Books Reading Challenge...for Adults! Sure, I read with my kids all the time---but this year I'm challenging myself to read more children's books by myself.

Want to join? It's easy! Just let me know in the comments below. If you have a blog or a Goodreads account you'd like to link up, even better! Then, every time you read a book for the challenge, just come back here and let us know about it with your thoughts or link in the comments. That way we can all be inspired! Let's use this hashtag: #2021ChildrensBooksChallenge on social media so we can find one another easier.

What books qualify? That one's simple: it's up to you! Anything you think could be found in the children's section of a library or bookstore is applicable, as well as timeless classics that the whole family would enjoy. Here is a list I made from Wikipedia that I'll be working from.
I can't wait to see what everyone is reading!

 

2021 Victorian Reading Challenge #2021VictorianReadingChallenge


The last six years, I've read everything "Victorian" I could get my hands on. I still can't seem to get enough, so this year I'm renewing my commitment toward Victorian studies. I'm still fascinated and there's still so much to learn! Read on for a phantasmagorical reading challenge for 2021---
Victorian style!


More than any other time in modern history, the Victorian Age saw the most change to European and American societies. Many agrarian, rural communities transitioned to urban centers of industry. Men and women began to talk about and take steps toward redefining their traditional roles. Theories about God, the origin of man, and the practice of religion began to be publicly put forth, challenged, refuted, or solidified. The Victorian Age saw a great revolution in the western world and it's a topic that fascinates me endlessly.

Over the past few years, I've collected a good stack of Victorian novels and have several on my Christmas list. I spent a week in England a few years ago, visiting the Brontes' old stomping grounds, and even wrote and taught a class on Victorian Sci Fi and Fantasy literature. This year's reading challenge will be all about the Victorians.

The Rules

*Books published during the Victorian age (1837-1901) are acceptable.

*Books written about the Victorian age are acceptable, no matter what year they were published.

*Stories are not limited to Victorian Britain. Read about what was going on in other parts of the world during this time!

The challenge is open to everyone everywhere---you don't have to have a blog or site to join. Just comment with the link to your online review (Amazon, Goodreads, BookCrossing, or elsewhere) and we'll come visit you.

How to Participate

Leave a comment below letting me know you're in and add your blog link if you have one. You can link directly to your home page or to a post you've written about the challenge. You can join at any point during 2021. Share this challenge with your friends so they can join, too!

Every time you finish a book for the challenge, come back and leave your thoughts/link in the comments---then we can all be inspired! Also, here's a hashtag for us to use so we can find one another easier: #2021VictorianReadingChallenge



Monday, December 7, 2020

Ten Days (or so) with Nellie Bly: Two Book Reviews


Book Description: "Nellie Bly's journal of being institutionalized for 10 days. An expose of how the 'insane' were treated." In 1887, journalist Nellie Bly convinced authorities she was insane so she could get the inside scoop on what was going on inside Bellevue Hospital, a local insane asylum for women. She found that many were put there not because they were insane but because they were in the way of their families or were immigrants who couldn't communicate well. Once she was "rescued" by friends and let out, she published her findings which led to reforms and more investigations.

This little book sparked a weeks long reading and research venture on the life of Nellie Bly and Victorian sensational novelists. It's not super well-written--- more a culmination of her notes with a little narration thrown in here and there. I found it difficult to follow chronologically but did feel I got the basic gist once I was done. Very awesome that her undercover work caused changes to be made within the facility and probably others too. After finishing this I couldn't get rid of a nagging feeling that I had another book on her. After a little digging, I found that I did have another---Eighty Days by Matthew Goodman (see below) is the story of her race around the world to attempt to beat Phileas Fogg's time. I read that and learned a ton more about Nellie Bly.



Book Description: "In 1889: Two women, successful journalists and writers, set off in a desperate race in opposite directions, each determined to outdo Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg and circle the globe in less than eighty days."  True Story!

I read this on the heels of Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Mad-House. After finishing that one, I knew the name sounded familiar so I dug through my TBR shelf and, sure enough, I did have this! Yay!

I learned a LOT reading this book, but my main take-away was a reminder that there are many facets to Feminism. I saw a children's book the other day promoting Bly as a Feminist. I'm not totally sure she fits what our culture would call Feminist, but in many ways, she represents the kind of Feminist I would have been in those days. I doubt modern ones who would label her this way have read her take on Susan B. Anthony: "When she met Susan B. Anthony, president of the (National Woman Suffrage) convention, she did not hesitate to tell her that, 'if women wanted to succeed they had to go out as women. They had to make themselves as pretty and attractive as possible.'"

Speaking of controversial topics, I was a little shocked at the behaviour of the boatmen in Egypt who rowed up to the ship to help take passengers to land. They coerced/forced the English passengers into their boats, sometimes violently, and then held them captive in the water for payment. Westerners of those days are now looked down on for their prejudices toward people from other parts of the world, but if stories like these, as well as those about being swarmed by beggars when stepping off the boat, circulated back to home, it's no wonder they took this view. This is definitely barbaric behaviour.

On the other hand, I learned a lot about the British empire, what they did to acquire their empire, and the general arrogance of imperialism. I was not impressed.

There were not nearly as many details about Bisland's trip as Bly's. Perhaps it's because Bisland didn't keep as detailed a diary. Much of the portions of the book devoted to Bisland were padded with related info about someone or something else.

People were shocked that Bly could get by with so little luggage---yet she did have the advantage over Bisland of having some time to think things through. I think it's crazy rotten that Bisland literally had a couple hours between learning she was going to being put on a train. My surprise was with the fact that Bly, this popular reporter known for fighting injustice, didn't report on any of the inhumane issues she saw. Perhaps she was only an advocate when there was a clear safety net nearby.

I spent almost the entire book rooting for Bly, only to be so disgusted by her arrogance and dishonesty at the end that I switched my loyalty to Bisland. I lost quite a bit of respect for Bly---especially when she made up stories that Bisland had attempted to sabotage her. To make matters worse, Bisland's boss later blamed her losing on her inexperience and ineptitude. Poor girl didn't even want to make the trip in the first place!

The book lost me a couple times when it became heavy on the war talk and there were several instances of repeated details, but overall, I really did enjoy reading this and will likely hold on to it for awhile in case I choose to use it with my high schoolers.

My favorite quote was this one describing Bisland's thoughts while riding through the English countryside: "It was a landscape she felt she already knew from books; riding through it she was not learning but remembering." That's how I feel, too, when I'm in England.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- A Book Review in Which I Clearly Fail as a Feminist


Book Description: "Narrated in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband has rented an old mansion for the summer. As a form of treatment, the unnamed woman is forbidden from working or writing, and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency", a diagnosis common to women during that period. The narrator devotes many journal entries to describing the wallpaper in the room  and how the longer one stays in the bedroom, the more the wallpaper appears to mutate, especially in the moonlight. With no stimulus other than the wallpaper, the pattern and designs become increasingly intriguing to the narrator. She soon begins to see a figure in the design and eventually comes to believe that a woman is creeping on all fours behind the pattern. Believing she must free the woman in the wallpaper, the woman begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall. When her husband arrives home, the narrator refuses to unlock her door. When he returns with the key, he finds her creeping around the room, rubbing against the wallpaper, and exclaiming "I've got out at last... in spite of you." He faints, but she continues to circle the room, creeping over his inert body each time she passes it, believing herself to have become the woman trapped behind the yellow wallpaper."

This story is nothing but a ridiculous piece of inflated propaganda. The author admits it's much more extreme than her own experience with a "nervous condition"---exaggerated to make her argument against the popular rest cures of the day. Her claims that the story caused her former doctor to repent are unsubstantiated and even argued as false by another researcher. The idea that a week or two without stimulation would put her into that kind of psychosis either proves she really did need help or it's as stupid as her husband fainting at the sight of her. Pure Victorian melodrama at it's best...

 I don't think we need to immediately jump to the conclusion that the male doctors of the 19th century were purposefully trying to oppress women. They were obviously ignorant of the differences in the ways most women respond to life's challenges compared to how most men do, but that's probably been the case since the beginning of time! And, they weren't far off with their "rest cure" ideas. What do we hear nowadays about many of our ailments being caused or at least exacerbated by stress? It's a thing. We need rest and regular breaks from overstimulation. Could it be that innocent and true compassion motivated these male doctors? Heaven forbid! That would annihilate our Feminist arguments! Many men lost their wives early in those days---maybe some of them tried crazy treatments purely from fear and compassion. 

From page 19: "And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me." Now I might just be an uneducated barefoot and perpetually pregnant housewife, but doesn't it sound like he is 1---encouraging her to access her own strength of character, 2---providing her with stimulation by reading to her, 3---speaking with love and kindness, even to the point of showing his emotional vulnerability? Oh you poor, oppressed, dominated woman! Try stepping out across town to a slum where a real abused woman lives battered and used by a drunken, lazy loser excuse for a husband. Please.

I have times when my husband is insistent about something out of concern for me and I know it's not necessary---so I tell him so and do my own thing. He rolls his eyes and does his own thing. In the mass majority of cases, this is likely what went on behind closed doors. People of those days aren't that different from people of these days---regardless of "society's" expectations. Women of those days should have been more angry at the other women around them for helping to perpetuate such a stupid code of conduct as women were encouraged to display. Very few men are or ever have been overbearing beasts to their women. It's in their God-given nature to protect and, in that same vein, it's the God-given nature to submit and be a helpmeet that these women are really fighting against. The women (like this character, like the author) who freely submitted to treatments that their own common sense told them were ridiculous are the ones to blame for not standing up for themselves lest they be labeled impolite by society.

Here's a challenge: go find something that's NOT obvious Feminist propaganda literature and really pay attention to the male characters. The 19th and early 20th centuries' obsession with male dominance and womanly simpering was just as much a fault of the women of society dictating what was "proper" for other women as anything else.  Take Pride and Prejudice for example. Look at the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Mr. Bennet has to put up with a ranting, complaining, opinionated wife and his only responses are sly sarcasm and quiet time alone in his library. Mr. Bingley is nothing but kind and mild mannered toward every woman in the story. Mr. Darcy is supposed to be arrogant but he still is every bit a gentleman and we later find his behavior is merely a mask for his own insecurities. The only male character in the story that has the slightest bit of derogatory attitudes toward women is Mr. Collins and he is known for being a pig---by both women AND men. Who rules the roost in P&P? Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, all the Bennet girls. Which woman is looked down on? Charlotte---the one who sells out out of desperation to have what society tells her will make her a real woman. Everybody knows Jane Austen wrote about the society around her. Old news propaganda aside, anyone who is well read in literature of the last 300 years can see that in the VAST majority of cases, western civilization has been equally dominated by both male and female. It is in surviving literature, written without an agenda, that we can truly see how society functions.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

A Room With a View by E.M. Forster -- Book Review

 


The name E.M. Forster summons up memories of high school advanced placement English class where my instructor would give us a 4-5 page piece of writing pulled from a novel and expect us to read, understand, converse wisely, and compose a 1,500 word essay on all its vague bits in just under 48 hours. I still have nightmares that I faked my way through that class.

A Room With a View is one of those novels that I knew was a classic and knew I read something about in high school but from which I chose to stay far away due to being tediously subjected to one of its dismembered parts my Senior year. When my daughter cosplayed Helena Bonham Carter a couple weeks ago, we took turns listing out her films and I was reminded that I'd seen photos online recently for this one. Searching my to be read shelves a few days ago after finishing The Scarlet Pimpernel, I came across this copy and, being in a mood, decided I'd give it a go. 

I've never cared for the "Bloomsbury novel"---that gratingly philosophical piece of writing that skips around in time with no back story and feels no need to go into depth about settings and scenery. The conversations are filled with symbolic foreshadowing and the pages are filled with conversations. I never feel like I know where I'm at or who I'm with when I try to follow this sort of story. Maybe my imagination just isn't developed enough.

In this specific story, the author uses the character of old Mr. Emerson to tout his philosophical views about class, prejudice, love, equality, Feminism, and more. I suppose he's meant to be a voice to draw Lucy out of her 19th century suppressed female compliance, but from 2020, his final scene with her looks awfully male-dominated. Words that are meant to encourage her to follow her heart still don't give her room for much of an opinion and, as was the way of the time, she is silenced and told what she must think or feel. Because of this, it was difficult for me to see her as truly in love with her husband in the final scene. Instead, it seemed like a further stifling. There was so much melodrama throughout and I came away thinking that perhaps Lucy really never loved any man.

Besides the very random kiss in the violets (had to reread---is she dreaming? I need to watch the film maybe...), I thought that the first half of the book was better written than the first. Yet, something rebellious and secretly Feminist in me suddenly began loving the story for a minute as I observed Lucy's behavior toward Cecil in the wood. She pretends to forget Emerson's name---then corrects herself. But it's not a remembrance, it's a confession, and it's quite a romantic foreshadowing of things we already know are to come.

The ultimate question of the novel is this: would I rather be connected with a room or a view?  The answer for most is, of course, a view---yet the ability to live in a view rather than a room is not easily obtainable for everyone. It requires risk, a strong sense of self, and sometimes the willingness to live lonely yet contented. The fact that Lucy got the view and the happily ever after makes this novel handsome enough to tempt me into watching the 1985 film, as well. 

Some of my favorite quotes include:

"Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them."

"But Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light and --- which he held more precious --- it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us."

"Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes." (2020 masks? Ha!)


Saturday, February 22, 2020

Early 20th Century School Volumes

Whenever I find these slim early 20th century classics, I imagine a group of Edwardian era students lounging under a shade tree in a park, chatting philosophically. Just like our generations like their technology to be small and portable, these 19-teens did as well!

I'm currently on a "collecting similar colors" kick and these three will look great in the greens section of my shelves. Someday I'll have the whole rainbow---I'm currently working mainly on pink. Ha! (An eclectic book collector will find any excuse to continue growing her collection...)

I love finding books that carry their history with them. This book of poems is heavily marked on every page. The girl was literally taking notes on the lecture right here in her book. My imagination runs wild with this kind of thing.

 
The back of Selections from The Sketchbook features a list of other offerings from this publisher. Almost every one of these have been or will be read by my children in the course of their homeschooling. How fun that we are still enjoying these works over one hundred years later!

Books Pictured:
     *Selections from The Sketchbook by Washington Irving, 1901
     *The Mansion by Henry van Dyke, 1911
     *Nine Poems from Goldsmith, Browning, Tennyson, Arnold, 1928

Friday, January 10, 2020

1939: The Lost World of the Fair by David Gelernter




From the back cover: "Yesterday’s World of Tomorrow. In a narrow corridor of time between the Great Depression and the most destructive war in history, a World’s Fair was held in the city of New York. It was an event that transformed an entire generation with its vision of things to come. Millions of people came from every corner of the globe to gaze in awe at the Trylon and Perisphere, and to experience for an afternoon a thrilling yet humane utopia in which every citizen lived “the good life” that art, science, technology, and moral fervor had created. In 1939, David Gelernter gives us an intensely evocative picture of the World's Fair — and of a fleeting era of innocent expectation when the world looked forward in wonder rather than backward with regret."






I'm left with mixed feelings about this one, but I think I liked it more than not. I love reading books that make me stop and Google every few pages and this was definitely one of those. I also love reading about past World's Fairs---all the details, all the emotions, all the innovations---that's where I got a little annoyed with this one. Gelernter used a fictional love story to help describe the events and I found it took a more prominent place than I would have liked it to, with even whole chapters being devoted to the story and not to the Fair.

One of my first "Google surprises" was that World's Fairs are still going on all over the world! (Don't laugh...I'm a hermit.) I had no idea but assumed that technology moved too fast for a Fair to be relevant. But I was wrong! I'd sure love to go to one. I think they're fascinating!

The author spent a lot of time trying to convince the reader that the 1930s were just as sophisticated as today. Is there any doubt? I'd say more so---and classier, too. Take his points about the code of dress and the "why bother" mentality. People who dress nicely do it to be respectful of others around them, just as much for themselves. This mentality has not left our society---it's just not promoted as important or moral anymore.

An interesting dichotomy was the things they were naive to compared to the things we assume they were naive to. For instance, these times weren't necessarily as innocent or "moral" as we might assume. There were lots of instances of nude art and even some soft porn featured at the fair. Yikes! On the other hand, the fair's SCIENCE DIRECTOR boasts, "the actual control of the weather for an entire town will by no means be impossible for air-conditioning engineers of the future." How someone not only believed that was possible or feasible but also didn't see the potential catastrophe that could create is shocking to me. However, these are also the parents of our current Baby Boomer "conspiracy theorists". Ha!

This was definitely a different time militarily. They had no such phrase to describe a nation as a, "super power", and if there would have been one, America wouldn't have been it. At that time, the French army was said to be the best in the world. Do we even hear about a French army now? Britain was possibly more powerful than us...but they sure seem awfully pacifist these days.

I really didn't too much enjoy the fictional love story and thought the story of the Fair could have been told just fine without it. I believe the author did it this way to help give a perspective of the feelings and reactions of the fairgoers, but at many points the dialogue became weirdly philosophical and didn't seem applicable.

Overall, it was a "fair"ly good read...but I think I'll be looking for something else on this particular Fair, as well.